Russia in Syria

Washington (CNN)A U.S. official told CNN Thursday that Russian fighter jets turned off their transponders as they flew into Syria in an apparent attempt to avoid detection. The official said the fighters flew very close to a transport plane that had its transponder on and functioning.

U.S. satellites rapidly saw that the aircraft were there, according to the official.

The assessment over the weekend was that the fighter jets were on their way. The same official said the Russians have begun flying drones around the coastal city of Latakia.

With no ISIS fighters in the area, the move raises serious questions about the Russians' intentions with their military buildup, which the U.S. has questioned the purpose of and watched with wariness. The action points to a higher likelihood that the Russian plan is to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rather than fight the terror group.

Russia/U.S.S.R has been friendly with Syria for 50 years. They're going to protect their interests in Syria.

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Without a doubt ... 25 Russian fighter jets sent in support. Naval operations in the eastern Mediterranean. Probably a few dozen tanks or more. But if this is a long bloody war, it is the Russian people that will have a tough time convincing. Money and interests can only pay a man so much.

Fine by me, let them start killing Russian troops instead of Americans. Putin can now start explaining to his people why there young men are dying AGAIN in that part of the world. An make no mistake those folks over there hate the Russians as much as they hate us. Thinking about it, maybe even more as the Russian will have much loser rules of engagement then we did.

Gotta be honest, I think Assad may be the best of all the bad alternatives over there.

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This is why I kind of doubt the Saudi and Turkish connections to ISIS. They're making Assad look like the rational alternative and that's not what either country would want to put out there on the agenda. It still feels like an effort launched by somebody from outside the region for destabilization purposes. It also feels like part of a campaign to drive us out of the region.

This is why I kind of doubt the Saudi and Turkish connections to ISIS. They're making Assad look like the rational alternative and that's not what either country would want to put out there on the agenda. It still feels like an effort launched by somebody from outside the region for destabilization purposes. It also feels like part of a campaign to drive us out of the region.

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Who besides the Russians or the CIA could possibly have put this in play?

Moderator

This is why I kind of doubt the Saudi and Turkish connections to ISIS. They're making Assad look like the rational alternative and that's not what either country would want to put out there on the agenda. It still feels like an effort launched by somebody from outside the region for destabilization purposes. It also feels like part of a campaign to drive us out of the region.

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Brad

Believe me sir. Saudis and Turks backed ISIS. An article for you below. Also you assume Turkish politicans and Saudi politicians are smart. They aren't. Current Turkish President Erdogan didn't even go to college. He was a failure in life until he learned how to use Islam to cheat stupid Turkish people. And Saudi policy makers all have blood connection to the King and that family is a stupid family. Fuck Saudi Arabia by the way.

Who besides the Russians or the CIA could possibly have put this in play?

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That's a good question. If you believe their primary foreign policy goal the Chinese are out, since they base their foreign policy on non-interference in the sovereign affairs of other nations.

The Pakistani's are probably out also, although the ISI is known for it's ability to do some pretty amazing and awful stuff. They got their fingers burned eventually by messing with the Taliban in Afghanistan and they're unlikely to be looking for part two in Syria.

Iran is unlikely to be playing a double-game here because ISIS is a genuine threat to their client state in Iraq.

Non-state actors are a possibility but this isn't a mercenary operation in the Congo. It's bigger than that so they'd probably need the backing of a larger entity to maintain control of the operation after it had started.

Maybe it's a contract situation with somebody behind the scenes pulling the strings and nobody expected it to get out of control the way it has? That still begs the question of who would want to contract to completely de-stabilize a state sitting on the edge of the largest oil-producing region in the world.

Believe me sir. Saudis and Turks backed ISIS. An article for you below. Also you assume Turkish politicans and Saudi politicians are smart. They aren't. Current Turkish President Erdogan didn't even go to college. He was a failure in life until he learned how to use Islam to cheat stupid Turkish people. And Saudi policy makers all have blood connection to the King and that family is a stupid family. Fuck Saudi Arabia by the way.

The article says that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are supporting an extremist alternative to ISIS: Jaish al-Fatah which includes Jabhat al-Nusra. That makes sense. They're trying to destabilize ISIS by supporting jihadists not aligned with it. The Turks are also supporting Ahrar al-Sham, another jihadist group that is fighting ISIS.

It says that Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham are fighting each other in some parts of Syria, which would make the Saudi's and Turks clients actual combatants in some places.

This makes sense given the chaos of the ongoing civil war. It's like Lebanon in the 70's and 80's where outside powers were drawn in piece-meal and the politics on the ground was always murky, with alliances shifting from neighborhood to neighborhood at times, although the war there was clearly a proxy war between Syria and Iran and Israel.

Moderator

The article says that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are supporting an extremist alternative to ISIS: Jaish al-Fatah which includes Jabhat al-Nusra. That makes sense. They're trying to destabilize ISIS by supporting jihadists not aligned with it. The Turks are also supporting Ahrar al-Sham, another jihadist group that is fighting ISIS.

It says that Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham are fighting each other in some parts of Syria, which would make the Saudi's and Turks clients actual combatants in some places.

This makes sense given the chaos of the ongoing civil war. It's like Lebanon in the 70's and 80's where outside powers were drawn in piece-meal and the politics on the ground was always murky, with alliances shifting from neighborhood to neighborhood at times, although the war there was clearly a proxy war between Syria and Iran and Israel.

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They aren't trying to destabilize the ISIS. ISIS is their only hope in the region.

The problem dealing with the Turks and one of the many confusing and complex parts of the equation in Syria is their distrust and long time hatred of the Kurds. And this has been the main problem in getting them to cooperate in terms of fighting ISIS. That was until ISIS started terrorism in Turkey. As for Russia the hawks keep screaming that we're letting Putin push us around. And that we need a strong leader. But never say specifically what they would do. Well aren't there sanctions on Russia based on their attempt to take over the Ukraine. Which have affected their economy significantly. And what exactly do they propose. War with Russia? But there is no doubt Russia supporting Assad just makes the situation there even more impossible to deal with.

This map shows how Kurds are being fucked in the region for years and Turkey wants to keep the defacto situation,

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Hi Brooklyn, I saw this after I posted. But in total agreement with you. Maybe you can elaborate more on the history of conflict between the Kurds and the Turks because you know the subject better than any of us.

That article is not persuasive on Turkey's role in setting up ISIS. All it says is that Turkey is supporting a bunch of Islamic extremists that may now include ISIS. It suggests that Turkey is cooperating with anybody aligned against the PKK since the PKK has managed to stabilize areas against the ISIS and other extremist operations.

The question is who started this thing? Who is the brains and the finance behind ISIS?

Nothing suggests that Turkey or Saudi Arabia sit in that role. They're both interested players in the region and they're both meddling but the question of who created ISIS is an open question.

Moderator

Hi Brooklyn, I saw this after I posted. But in total agreement with you. Maybe you can elaborate more on the history of conflict between the Kurds and the Turks because you know the subject better than any of us.

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I will shortly. But please don't forget. I am a Kurd. A Kurd who was forced to shout "Proud to be Turk" every morning at school for 5 years.

When Ottoman Empire collapsed, all minorities under the Empire got seperated and founded their own countries. Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Armenia, Iraq, Syria are all countries that formed after Ottoman Empire collapsed.

Kurds chose to fight along with Turks because they were Muslims like Tuks and Arabs hated both Turks and Kurds. For this, they were punished by French and British.
Sykes-Picot Agreement drew the current Middle East borders and Kurds were left at the mercy of newly founded countries in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. All 3 countries chose to oppress Kurds and kill Kurds systematically for around 100 years now.

When I was growing up in Turkey, you couldn't give your kids a Kurdish name. In schools, we were forced for an oath to the Turkish flag and cheer "Proud to be Turk" every morning under Turkish Flag. And every Friday, before we were let go to our homes, we were gathered at the school and forced to sing Turkish National Anthem.

Moderator

And one more thing to add. As a Kurd who was born in a village only a few hours from Syrian border to a mom and dad who didn't know how to read and write, I never felt any allegience to a flag. I never felt myself belonging to Turkey. I was always insulted for being a Kurd while in Turkish boarding schools.

But finally, after living in USA for 11 years now and being a US citizen, I developed a huge love for American flag, American National Anthem. I finally feel like I have a country and I feel like belonging to a country.

Many of the countries formed after WWI were formed by the colonial powers with arbitrary lines drawn on the map. What is now Syria was the provinces of Aleppo and Damascus and parts of adjacent provinces. The actual country of Syria had been ruled in this way for hundreds of years after the Ottomans took the territory in the 1500's.

This is true for most of the countries currently on the map in the Middle East. They were compartments of the Ottoman Empire that were constructed or reconstructed by the victorious powers in WWI using often arbitrary lines on the map to weaken local government by putting competing minorities into the same area to fight over control.

The Kurds and Armenians were victims of the re-drawing of the maps by the west. They were suppressed viciously by the Turks, with genocide and ethnic cleansing the rules by which the nationalists gained and maintained power. This wasn't an Islamic thing it was a secular thing. The Turks who tried to destroy these two cultures, among others, were no more Islamic than the Nazi's were Catholic or Protestant.

I don't know if the world can overcome these long standing hatreds and sometimes the genocides that accompanied them. In Europe and the Middle East. Any way can they go forward. Brooklyn has just given us great insight into part of this complex maybe unsolvable problem. But diplomacy is the correct path. If the US intervenes with a substantial military presence (which most Americans do not want) we could be there for decades (like Afghanistan).